I think the only level in which it makes sense to scout D3 is, oddly, D2. Check out Victor Chandler who was a D3 recruit. Definitely a serviceable PG at D2 much less D3. Now, I was in the Pacific NW with less recruits within the 500 mile bubble which made it a pretty cost-effective place to scout. Even so, I have scouted D3 guys at pretty minimal cost, but the two times I got a D3 guy it was very cost effective (low risk, decent reward for the scouting cash actually spent).

What was the method for scouting D3 that you used? I've had success with D3 JuCos but have never found a 4 year player I liked from the D3 pool--certainly not at the caliber of the player above.

In reality, when I scout a very large number of D2 or D3 players, I find plenty of them that are just as good as players who are one level higher. So, it is not uncommon for me to find D2 players who are as good (or bettter) than D1 players. Here is an older example:

Pastebin-Players

Those are the final projected numbers of 2 Division-2 players from my spreadsheet from a 2022 team (I put them on pastebin to lineup the format of the numbers in the table). I can try below as well, but tables on the forum do not line up super well.

Pos Name A SPD REB DE BLK LP PE BH P WE ST DU TOT
PG Richard Ewert 80 93 6 81 6 42 49 62 55 88 77 69 708
PF Richard Wrigley 75 38 78 84 59 80 45 26 44 63 87 81 760

This was for a press team, so I was focused more on ATH and DEF for all players, and also SPD on Guards and SF.

Why do I scout D2 players for a D2 team? (I don't think I will ever play D3 again)
Because I do find some D2 players who are as good D1 players. They are normally not nearly as recruited as the same caliber D1 player. (That is, far fewer human coaches on the D2 player as compared to the same attribute rated D1 player)

How many D2 players do I normally scout for a D2 team?
I normally do a private (hosted) camp. (See cubcub's guide, search for 'FSS+Private Camp + Individual Scout/Assistant Search Combo')

Hosted camps charge $60 per recruit, within 500 miles, and give you 2 levels of scouting. How many players do I put in the hosted camp? I follow shoe3's (I think it was shoe3 :D) guideline of (Scouting Budget - $1000)/200 .

This will give you a number of recruits that you should be able to scout to level 4. Example: If you have $34,000 initial scouting budget, that would be 165 players. The cost of that camp would be 165x$60=$9,900. I select both D1 and D2 recruits for the camp. Run the camp and then do FSS on states that fall almost completely within 300 to 500 miles on this map link from cubcub's guide. I also try to keep the total number of players I am going to scout in FSS (before I buy the FSS) to nearly that same number of players (in this case 165). If you are going to get 1500 players within 500 miles, scout less states.

Then I start at 100 miles on an assistant seach and UNCHECK Find New Players. This means we will only scout players we have found within 100 miles. Once i can no longer scout anyone (the scouting money stops dropping when i try to scout), I go to 200 miles, then 300, etc. (or you could just start doing within 500 miles and get as many as you can). In any event, I stop scouting at around $1000 in my scouting budget (so I can look at transfers in Recruiting Session 2) and I should have at least 165 recruits scouted to level 4. In my last recruiting session, I had 198 instead of 165 for $34,000. Of those, 118 were D1 and 80 were D2.

It depends on location, but in some areas, like the pac nw, you can include d1, d2, d3 in a private camp without missing out on scouting all the local d1s or over spending on lower levels. And in less populous states with fewer players it’s not expensive to use scouting service. I limited my D3 search to a radius of 100-200 within my state depending on my cash flow.

Posted by wesmike on 1/21/2023 9:55:00 AM (view original):
It depends on location, but in some areas, like the pac nw, you can include d1, d2, d3 in a private camp without missing out on scouting all the local d1s or over spending on lower levels. And in less populous states with fewer players it’s not expensive to use scouting service. I limited my D3 search to a radius of 100-200 within my state depending on my cash flow.

I might actually try that. The rating system they use for players does not (IMHO) give enough weight to potential. Potential, and WE, are by far the most important aspect to players final attributes (well, the final attributes are the thing that matters, but potential and WE are critical to project the players).

The recruit rankings do not take into account the Final attributes, at least it seems that way. This is why some D2 (or D3) players are better than their D1 counterparts. And certainly, every level down you go, less and less human coaches are on those lower-level players. So, you can find players who will grow into great players and get them cheaply.